Renaissance

‘Renaissance’, director Ben Rowarth, present their latest programme, Darkness Into Light, which moves from music for Lent, reflecting on Christ’s passion and human sin, into music for Easter and Pentecost. At the centre of the programme lies John Sheppard’s Media Vita, perhaps his most famous and certainly most impressive extended work and around this, we will be performing music from the sixteenth and twentieth centuries with works by Tallis, Schutz, Poulenc and Tavener. This programme marks the start of a number of performances celebrating the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Sheppard, perhaps one of the most influential composers of the Renaissance Period.

“One of the most exciting young a cappella groups to have set out their stall in recent years”, Peter Phillips, The Tallis Scholars

Renaissance is a small group of singers directed by Ben Rowarth, originally founded in Durham, still taking a number of its singers from Durham University Graduates. The choir specializes in two specific genres: Renaissance Polyphony and 20th/21st Century, or ‘Contemporary Music’ and works, not only to give specialist performances of these two genres separately, but also to provide programs that show how well these two contrasting and beautiful styles complement each other. After being founded in 2011, the group have been moving from strength to strength, receiving outstanding reviews and appearing on BBC Radio 3 in 2012. They will be performing in many more venues around the UK in the near future.

‘I have never been more impressed by choral singing in Durham.’ – Ralph Allwood, 2012